Tarzana homeowner uses paintball gun to scare off masked prowlers

Masked prowlers scared off by neighbor in Tarzana

An alleged break-in attempt was all caught on camera in Tarzana. Police believe it's part of a rash in burglaries in the San Fernando Valley.

LOS ANGELES - It was just after 10 p.m. Tuesday when Julian Harper Smith noticed a silver SUV driving up and down Aura Avenue in Tarzana.

Call it his "spidey sense," but he knew something was wrong - and he was right.

It was no ordinary flashlight that Harper Smith used to scare off the prowlers. The 100,000 lumens light worth around $700 lighted up an entire block, most likely leading the suspects to believe that police had arrived.

This attempted burglary, the latest in a string of home burglaries targeting nearby Encino, makes well over a dozen now in just the last few weeks.

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And while police have not identified this group of suspects, they believe they are all connected.

Moments after the attempted break-in, a silver SUV was spotted by police driving recklessly through Encino.

They tried pulling the driver over and the pursuit was on. Police eventually lost the suspects on Hayvenhurst - coincidentally, in the same exact neighborhood where many of the other home burglaries have happened.

Back in Tarzana, Harper Smith is happy that his elaborate system of dozens of security cameras paid off, and he was able to help prevent his neighbor, who had been sleeping at the time, from being burglarized.

He also hopes the paintball shots serve as a warning to the would be burglars not to come back.

FOX 11 reached out to the LAPD and obviously they’re very concerned about this latest crime trend but they point out that burglaries in this area are actually down 17.3% from this time last year.

Regardless, they have a team of detectives working to find these burglars.

Crime and Public Safety Tarzana Instastories